Astronomy has always had a
role to play in
theological discourse. From the
time of the earliest
records of the
ancients, it was supposed that the
lights in the night sky represented
mystical forces. And, once it was understood that there were
distinct forms of objects beyond our
horizon, elaborate systems were imagined to explain their
significance, and their supposed influence on
human affairs.
Ptolemy of Alexandria devised
a model of the
sun and
planets which placed the
Earth at the center of our
Universe, orbited by the
Moon, then
Mercury and
Venus, then the sun and the rest of the known planets:
Mars,
Jupiter, and
Saturn. All of this, in the
Ptolomeic model, was surrounded by a moving
sphere of fixed
stars. We now know that Ptolomy's model was wrong, but not for any lack of
intellect on Ptolomy's part. Instead, it was a well-thought out model that largely accounted for what could be observed in that age, and with the prevailing theological supposition, of our Earth sitting at the center of our Universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus pioneered the next great leap in astronomical knowledge. Copernicus published his
heliocentric theory, placing the Sun at the center of our Universe, shortly before his
death. This was necessary due to the prevailing religious sentiments of the time. Although we now know the heliocentric model to be true, the
monolithic
Christianity of the
era required the Earth to be at the center of the Universe, and so, truth was suppressed in the name of
religion.
Following the work of Copernicus,
Galileo Galilei determined, as well, that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the central point for the planets. His work was based on the most practical level of research, improving the design of
telescopes and then observing the sun, moon, and planets through them, and reporting his
observations. For his discoveries, he was
condemned by the Church, which famously declared the theory that the Earth orbits the sun to be "
false and contrary to
Scripture." But, it is not so widely remembered that he was equally condemned for discovering
spots on the sun,
craters on the moon, other moons circling other planets, and that the planets themselves were not perfect
orbs, as the church required. Under threat of of
torture by religious officials, Galileo recanted -- but, naturally,
recanting what is a true has never worked to make it untrue.
Johannes Kepler, lived in the same era as Galileo, but in a place less dominated by religious oppression. Working in the
observatory of another great astronomer,
Tycho Brahe, Kepler sought to solve the
riddle of the apparent
retrograde motion of Mars -- that is, the tendency of Mars to sometimes appear to move backwards in its orbit. In doing so,
Kepler hit upon another great discovery, that the planets did not orbit the Sun at a
uniform speed, or in perfect circles, or with the Sun at the exact center, as the religious leaders required. The planets instead orbited in a-centric
ellipses, with orbital speed changing in conjunction with the distance from the Sun, which was simply a
focal point, and not at the exact center of their orbit.
Sir
Isaac Newton's theory of
gravity was initially set forth in great measure to explain the means by which bodies in orbit were maintained in that way. It paved the way for the theological theory of deism by demonstrating that the constant hand of the Creator was not at all needed to explain the motions of the planets, but that celestial bodies could instead be maintained in their
angular momentum entirely by the
clockwork operation of celestial mechanics.
It was astronomers who, centuries later, insured the upending of Newtonian physics when they confirmed
Einstein's
theory of relativity by observing the predicted
gravitational lensing of light passing distant stars. It was astronomers who gave us the key to
the age of our Universe.
Edwin Hubble discovered that ours was not the only
galaxy, and by examining the
redshift of other galaxies moving in relation to our own, that the Universe was expanding. It is somewhat remarkable in itself that up until
1925, it was not known that a single other galaxy existed, and after that date, that countless numbers of them did.
Hubble's discovery of universal expansion was disturbing to those who, for both scientific and theological reasons, believed the Universe to have existed forever, in much the same state. Astronomer
Fred Hoyle was among those who developed the
steady state theory, which proposed that the expansion of our Universe was fueled by a constant infusion of new
material from some central point, so that it had always appeared, and would always appear, much as it does today. But this theory was disproved with the discovery of very old
quasars and similar very old and very distant structures, which are not found in the neighborhood of younger galaxies which are farther along from the point of the initial expansion. It is somewhat ironic today that the
Big Bang proponents were largely religious, championing the theory in part for its assignment of a point of origin to the Universe which accorded with
Creation mythology, while the steady state proponents tended to be
atheistic.
Once the Big Bang theory was confirmed, this knowledge, refined over time, allowed man to at last pinpoint the age of our Universe to approximately thirteen billion seven hundred and thirty million years. Later astronomers like
Carl Sagan,
Paul Davies, and
Timothy Ferris would continue to do more and more to not only advance our understanding of our Universe, and the continuum of physics governing objects within it, but to profoundly effect the validity of theological models as well, making it impossible to rationally believe in a Creator for whom human beings were at the center of our Universe.
As astronomical discoveries have taken us farther and farther away from our initial imagined posture in the center of our Universe, theological systems have reacted in different ways. Some have simply shifted the
vanity and self-centeredness that led us to believe ourselves to be the center of a perfectly ordered Universe away from the astronomical realm, insisting that even as we are seen to occupy an insignificant position in space, we remain the object of
adoration for the Creator of that vast space, so richly occupied in places beyond our very
imagination. Other theological models have strengthened in their grasp of a theology in line with astronomical reality.
Pandeism is one such theory, demanding that any theological explanation must accord with the nature of our observed Universe. And so, the astronomers, in their generations of work advancing our understanding of our place within our Universe, have provided an inspiration to pandeism, and to all theological theories recognizing the grandness of a Universe in which we are so privileged to play even the most minute role.